Make Your Own Rock Candy

Throughout my scholarly career, there were two things I was never any good at. Science and art. Fine, three things. I was horrific when it came to all things math, too. Until I reached college and was allowed to take logic (math with words!) and ended up being very good at it. Probably because it’s all about argumentation. Which I guess I’m good at? Oops.

My point is, this post is all about two things I’m horrible at. Science and art (well, crafts, anyway). You see, ever since I started wedding planning, I’ve been obsessed with DIYing. Seeing that I’m the least crafty person on Earth, this could get dangerous fast. Just ask Chris. Or my mom. But since I want our wedding to be completely US and made from our hearts and souls, I’m going to try my best to add little touches throughout. So, that’s where the idea for this post was born.

You see, I had a really bright idea to make our own rock candy for the wedding. That is until I realized what making rock candy entails. Basically, if we started making the rock candy now, we could probably have enough for the wedding… But much of it would likely be stale… And we would have burned through about 100 pounds of sugar. At least. So, I don’t recommend making these for your next major event. But I do recommend making them for fun. And when I say fun, I mean good old fashioned fun. Obviously. If you have kids, even better. But if not, well then you won’t have to explain all the science behind rock candy to anyone, so maybe that’s for the best.

But please know you have to be incredibly patient to make rock candy. Another trait that I apparently lack.

The process is simple. So simple, you’ll laugh at how many times I failed. But when it worked? It was pretty awesome.

If you can, prepare your skewer (or thread) a day ahead of time. Simply wet it and cover it completely in sugar. Let it dry. This will allegedly help the crystals form once you place the skewer in the jar with the sugar solution. Some will tell you it’s not totally necessary, but I figured I’d do everything I could do make this thing work.

You should also prepare your jars before starting the process. Simply take clean jars and hang your skewer from the top. As you can see, we hung the skewers from clips that balanced nicely. I’ve seen people hang string from pencils with tape and set the pencil across the top of the jar, too. Make sure the skewer or thread is hanging about an inch from the bottom of the jar.

When you’re ready to make your rock candy, start by bringing the 2 cpus of water to boil. Easy enough, right?

Add your sugar in cup by cup, stirring and letting each cup dissolve before adding in another.

Continue until all 3.5 cups of sugar have absorbed.

See how much fun I’m having? Here I’m thinking, “Wow, this is easy! Wedding rock candy, here we come!”

Now, here’s where all the various sets of instructions I read varied. Some said to let the sugar dissolve and then turn the heat off. But I found more comments from people saying they let their sugar water boil for about 10 more minutes before turning the heat off.

So, I did that.

After 10 minutes of boiling, I took the pot off the burner and added in my food coloring. I chose purple since it’s one of our wedding colors. And you know, I was going to make 200 rock candies for our wedding. Ahem.

Chris joined me for my great rock candy experiment and made his own, too.

He opted for blue. Not one of our wedding colors, but I think he already knew there was no way I was going to be making rock candy for our wedding. He may be a bit smarter than me.

Let your sugar solution cool for about 10 minutes and then pour half of it into one of your prepared jars.

You might want to use a funnel.

Secure your apparatus from the top and make sure it’s sturdy. Once you have your skewer or string hanging in the jar, you shouldn’t move it at all.

Repeat with your second jar.

We covered the jars with bags… Well, Chris put his IN bags… I put a small baggie over the top of mine. I think it’s mostly so nothing disturbs the crystals while they’re growing and dust doesn’t fall on them.

And here’s where the waiting begins. And the confusion starts. We let them rest without touching them for about 6 days. Chris checked on his.

And it looked like this:

Mine? Well, mine had NO crystals. Neither of them. I let one of the jars continue to sit and for the other, I followed one tutorial’s advice, which said to dump the sugar solution back into a pot, bring back to a boil, add another cup of sugar in, let it dissolve, and put the solution back in the jar. Well, right when I turned the heat off, the solution immediately crystalized making it impossible to even pour into the jar. Sigh. I think it was on sugar overload.

We ended up going on vacation for 7 days and I left my other jar sitting. When I came back, it was HUGE. It’s that clear-looking one (apparently, I didn’t use enough food coloring) in the middle seen below. I guess in this case, patience was a virtue. And clearly, I need to go away on a week-long vacation to get that “patience.”

I decided to try a few more batches and had the following results: One of them started growing crystals within hours and in a couple days, it was a healthy-looking rock candy. Many of them, I let sit undisturbed for 4 days before discovering the whole jar was crystalizing. As some tutorials instructed, I removed the hard pieces of sugar off the top and transferred the solution and skewer into a new, clean jar. This generally worked really well except when the crystals growing on the skewer got stuck to the ones growing on the bottom of the jar and I couldn’t for the life of me get the skewer out.

In general, one rock candy from each of my batches worked. The second either didn’t grow a thing or crystallized into the jar. I wish I could give you better reasons why, but all I can say is that making rock candy is kind of a crap shoot. Let it sit quietly undisturbed, but pay attention to it. If it’s growing crystals all over, remove them. If it’s not, don’t touch it. For at least a week.

But I suppose you DO want to know the science behind it, right? Fine. From what I learned throughout my endeavors, dissolving sugar in boiling water and then letting it cool, creates a supersaturated solution, which means the solution can’t possibly absorb the sugar at the cooler temperature. Therefore, the solution becomes unstable and all the sugar can’t stay in the liquid, so it attaches itself to the skewer or string which act as a “seed.” That’s all I got and that’s as far as my science education is going to go.

Rock candy IS super easy to make and mostly just requires patience and luck, so if you have a little extra sugar lying around and want to experiment, try it out!

I don’t really have to tell you what it tastes like, now do I? It’s sugar. On a stick. And there’s really nothing better.

Now, I’m going to start researching where we can order rock candy for our wedding 🙂

Have you ever made your own rock candy? Or done a science experiment as a grown up?

Also, Chels and I were just nominated as CBS Boston’s Most Valuable Lifestyle Blogger in Boston! We’d appreciate it so much if you took the time to give us a vote and told all your friends. It’s super easy and you can vote every day. Thank you so, so much!

Well, it sure looks great! I had DIY-fever for my wedding too. Then I woke up one day and remembered how much I hate crafts. And bought everything. Except for the favors, which I cooked with my mom…because at least I like cooking!

I just bought Sugarbaby and have been planning to try the rock candy recipe just for fun. There’s a suggestion in there to use toothpicks and make mini rock candy… which could speed things up if you haven’t completely given up on making your own for your wedding.

Ironically I had actually planned on trying this tomorrow. Last night I was looking something else up in my Joy of Cooking and thought it’d be really cool to try. I’m so glad I saw your blog because I’m going to do more investigating before I begin. My book says to take a disposable square 8″ aluminum pan, punch 7-8 holes 1/2″ up on two opposite sides. Then lace string back and forth. Then you pour sugar mixture (boiled to 250- hard ball stage) over string. String will be immersed. Then cover pan & leave undisturbed 36-48 hours at least. Then wait some more until it’s all crystalized. Cut strings and lift it out of pan. (I guess it’s solid now – idk) put on baking sheet in 200 degree oven to dry. Says to use strings as decoration or knock crystals off. Store in air tight container at room temp. Usage idea- pile crystals high in bowl at party for fancy sugar for coffee.
I didn’t copy recipe here. Just gave you the highlights. As you can imagine I now have a headache. Lol. You used 3.5 cups of sugar. Mine is 2.5 cups sugar, 1cup water and a pinch of Cream of Tartar.

I have had varied luck over the last few years, making rock candy. Like yours, some stuck to the stick, some turned to a huge blob in the bottom of the jar. Luckily for me, I was making them to tie onto Christmas packages, and not for a wedding, or the pressure would have gotten to me! I ordered candy flavorings, and added it to my sugar solutions. Then co-ordinated it with the color-mint or irish cream went with green, for example. These were made to use for stirring coffee, sweetening it, and giving it some specialty flavors! A great gift in itself. If you have serious coffee drinkers on your list!

I just had to do a chemistry experiment dealing with recrystalization. We did the same process of boiling the water and sugar to supersaturate it, after it was completely mixed we placed the beaker in an ice bath and the crystals automatically formed. I wonder if that process would work to speed up the rock candy process.

I loveee this site! I’m using rock candy in my wedding too, Purple and White Rock Candy in a vase to make a “bouquet”. I’ve searched online for some to buy, but it is kind of expenses so I thought I would try to make my own. Sounds easy, right? HA! 🙂

Well I am really glad I read this. I have been attempting to make rock candy for a baby shower. I have watched countless videos. Everyone makes it look so easy. For some reason the sugar I bought never seems to get clear. I stir and stir and stir. By the time it comes to a boil and I pour it into the jars within an hour its like a solid hard clump. I have three weeks to complete this task lol. I will not give up 😉